White Star Line

History

Early history (1845–1868)

The first company bearing the name White Star Line was founded in Liverpool, England, by John Pilkington and Henry Wilson in 1845. It focused on the UK–Australia trade, which increased following the discovery of gold in Australia in 1851. Because of this, many wished to emigrate to Australia, and the population of Australia increased from 430,000 to 1.7 million inhabitants in three years. From this time on, Pilkington and Wilson emphasized the safety of their ships when addressing the press. In order to make the crossings more pleasant aboard these austere wooden sailboats, musician groups were hired to allow the passengers to dance to popular tunes. In this trade, speed and size became important assets. The fleet initially consisted of the chartered sailing ships Tayleur, Blue Jacket, White Star, Red Jacket, Ellen, Ben Nevis, Emma, Mermaid and Iowa.

Tayleur, the largest ship of its day, was the one on which high hope was placed. These hopes were quickly dashed. Departing on its maiden voyage on 19 January 1854, Tayleur proved difficult to handle, and its crew was inexperienced. When it struck rocks in very rough seas at Lambay Island, near Ireland, on 21 January, the ship sank, with only 290 of the 650 people on board surviving. Subsequent inquiry placed the blame on its owners, Charles Moore & Co., who did not take the necessary safety precautions when the ship was put into service. This exonerated the White Star Line and the ship's captain of any blame.

In order to compensate for the loss of Tayleur, the company ordered several clippers of its own, the first of which was Red Jacket. The ship proved to be sufficiently efficient on the Australian route to ensure a certain success for the company, which could thus own new, faster ships such as Shalimar, Sultana, Emma and White Star. In addition, the company also ran voyages from Liverpool to Victoria, British Columbia, which it promoted in Welsh newspapers as being the gateway to the Klondike Gold Rush. One of the ships on this route was Silistria. Travelling around Cape Horn and stopping in Valparaíso and San Francisco, she reached Victoria after a voyage lasting four months.

In 1856, however, the company lost postal contracts, while Wilson persisted in wanting ever larger ships to keep the public's attention. Pilkington, becoming disillusioned, then left the company. Wilson replaced him with his brother-in-law, James Chambers, and the company continued its activities, betting everything on sailing ships while its most direct rivals, the Black Ball Line and the Eagle Line merged in 1858 after the difficulties engendered by the establishment of their service using steamships. During these years, Wilson paid attention to migration flows, directing his services to Canada or New Zealand according to trends. In 1863, the company acquired its first steamship, Royal Standard.

First transatlantic services (1868–1874)

White Star began its North Atlantic run between Liverpool and New York with six nearly identical ships, known as the Oceanic class: Oceanic, Atlantic, Baltic and Republic, followed by the slightly larger Celtic and Adriatic. It had long been customary for many shipping lines to have a common theme for the names of their ships, and White Star gave their ships names ending in -ic. The line also adopted a buff-coloured funnel with a black top as a distinguishing feature for their ships, as well as a distinctive house flag, a red broad pennant with a swallowtail bearing a white five-pointed star. In the initial designs for this first fleet of liners, each ship was to measure 420 ft (130 m) in length, 40 ft (12 m) in width and approximately 3,707 gross register tons (GRT), equipped with compound expansion engines powering a single screw, and capable of speeds of up to 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph). They were also identical in passenger accommodations based on a two-class system, providing accommodations for 166 first class passengers amidships, which at the time was commonly referred to as 'Saloon Class' and 1,000 steerage passengers.

It was within the circles of the massive tides of immigrants flowing from Europe to North America that the White Star Line aimed to be revered by, as throughout the company's full history they regularly strived to provide passage for steerage passengers which greatly exceeded that seen with other shipping lines. With the Oceanic class, one of the most notable developments in steerage accommodations was the division of steerage at opposite ends of the vessels, with single men being berthed forward, and single women and families berthed aft, with later developments allowing married couples berths aft as well.

White Star's entry into the trans-Atlantic passenger market in the spring of 1871 got off to a rocky start. When Oceanic sailed on her maiden voyage on 2 March, she departed Liverpool with only 64 passengers aboard, from whence she was expected to make port at Queenstown the following day to pick up more passengers before proceeding to New York. However, before she had cleared the Welsh coast her bearings overheated off Holyhead and she was forced to return for repairs. She resumed her crossing on 17 March and ended up not completing the crossing to New York until 28 March. However, upon her arrival in New York, she drew considerable attention, as by the time she departed on her return crossing to Liverpool on 15 April, some 50,000 spectators had looked her over. White Star's troubles with their first ship were short lived and Oceanic's second crossing to New York was more successful. She departed Liverpool on 11 May and arrived in New York on 23 May with 407 passengers aboard.

Records and diversification (1874–1899)

In the wake of the Atlantic disaster, the White Star Line continued to expand its fleet. Gaelic and Belgic joined the five Oceanic-class liners, and the company's success continued to grow. However, rival companies quickly caught up: Cunard placed Botnia and Scythia into service, while the Inman Line ordered City of Brussels and Montana and Dakota entered service with the Guion Line. All were built in response to White Star's ground breaking liners and were thus larger.

In response, White Star ordered two new steamers from Harland & Wolff, both of which were designed as considerably larger, two-funnelled versions of the Oceanic-class steamers. These two ships measured 455 ft (139 m) in length and 45 ft (14 m) in width, with a gross tonnage of roughly 5,000 tons and with engines of similar design as seen in the earlier ships, with the exception of greater horsepower, capable of driving their single screws at speeds of up to 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph). Passenger capacity was also increased, with the two vessels able to carry 200 saloon passengers and 1,500 steerage passengers. The first of the pair, which had initially been named Hellenic, was launched as Britannic on 3 February 1874 and departed on her maiden voyage to New York on 25 June. Her sister Germanic (1874) was launched on 15 July 1874, but due to complications in her construction, she did not enter service until 20 May 1875. With the introduction of these new ships, Oceanic was declared surplus and, in the spring of 1875, was chartered to one of White Star's subsidiaries, the Occidental & Oriental Shipping company, under which she operated their trans-Pacific route between San Francisco, Yokohama and Hong Kong until her retirement in 1895. The two new steamers proved immensely popular on the North Atlantic run, and both would end up capturing the Blue Riband on two eastbound and three westbound crossings within a two-year period. Germanic captured the westbound record in August 1875, then captured the eastbound record in February 1876, while Britannic captured both records within less than two months of each other, beating the westbound record in November and the eastbound record in December. Germanic captured the westbound record for the last time in April 1877. During that same year, the company began sharing a postal agreement with the Cunard Line, allowing its ships' names to be prefixed with 'RMS' ('Royal Mail Ship').

The arrival of the two new liners created a surplus of ships on the North Atlantic route for the White Star Line. At the same time, George Bradbury, president of the Occidental and Oriental Steamship Company, a company formed in 1874 to compete with the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, enlisted the help of Thomas Ismay in setting up his new service. The White Star Line responded by lending the new company Oceanic, which had become a surplus ship, as well as Gaelic and Belgic. This charter initiative proved profitable, with Oceanic remaining on the San Francisco – Hong Kong route for twenty years. New ships were gradually assigned to this contract in the 1880s, such as Arabic in 1881, and the new Belgic (1885) and Gaelic (1885) in 1885. The partnership continued until 1906, when White Star withdrew Coptic from the Pacific route. The Occidental and Oriental Steamship Company disappeared two years later in the face of competition from the new ships of the Pacific Mail Company.

The Boer War and the Big Four

With the death of Thomas Ismay, his eldest son, Bruce, took over. He was joined at the helm of Ismay, Imrie & Co. by his friend Harold Sanderson in addition to the members already present, notably the now elderly William Imrie and his brother, James Ismay. The company was quickly involved in the Second Boer War, with several of its ships being requisitioned, starting with the cargo ship Nomadic in October 1899. Several ships quickly followed, notably Britannic, which had become surplus to requirements on the North Atlantic route. A total of ten ships were assisting in the war effort, six of them as part of their regular service. 17,000 men and 4,000 animals were transported to the conflict by White Star ships in just over two years.

Even before Oceanic had been completed, White Star had already started making plans for a considerably larger addition to their fleet. In September 1898, before his health began failing, Thomas Ismay negotiated the terms for the orders for the last passenger liner he would ever order for the line he had built. This time, plans were essentially the same as they had been with Oceanic, only taking considerably more steps in innovation. While staying with the trend in focusing more on comfort than speed as had been set with Cymric and Oceanic, Ismay's plans called for a new passenger liner of dimensions the world had never seen, and her chosen name was to be Celtic (1901), a name taken and reused from the original Oceanic class. The initial designs for Celtic had her at 680 ft (210 m) in length, slightly shorter than Oceanic, but with a greater breadth of 75 ft (23 m). Additionally, while Oceanic had set the record for length, Celtic would triumph in tonnage, measuring just over 20,000 tons.

One point of interest about this new ship was in regard to her engines. A comparison was made between the machinery installed aboard Cymric and that placed in Oceanic. Due to Cymric initially being designed as a livestock carrier, she was built with smaller engines capable of modest speeds which both consumed less coal and occupied less space within the hull. As a result, there was an astonishing difference which gave Cymric a considerable advantage over Oceanic. Although Cymric was only about two-thirds of the size of Oceanic in terms of gross tonnage (12,552 to 17,274), her net tonnage, a unit of measurement used to account for space aboard a ship usable for passengers and cargo was actually greater than that of the larger vessel (8,123 net tons aboard Cymric compared to only 6,996 with the Oceanic). Builders and designers used this as a baseline for engine designs for Celtic. She was to be equipped with quadruple expansion engines geared to twin screws capable of modest speeds of just over 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph). As she was geared to lower service speeds, her coal consumption was far less at only 260 tons per day, which compared to the 400 tons per day needed to power Oceanic, made her much more economical. At the same time, owing to her broad hull, she was designed with cargo holds capable of storing up to 18,500 tons of commercial cargo, a strategic placement in her design as that cargo was to serve as ballast, keeping her steady in even the roughest seas.

Intermediate liners and rapid expansion

Meanwhile, as a result of the IMM takeover, White Star obtained four newly completed liners in the last months of 1903, Columbus, Commonwealth, New England and Mayflower. These four liners had been owned and operated by the Dominion Line for their services between Liverpool and Boston as well as their Mediterranean cruising and emigrant route, which also connected to Boston. However, the Dominion Line was also absorbed into IMM and the four ships were transferred to White Star. In addition to the acquisition of these ships, White Star also acquired control of the routes as well. Upon their acquisition by White Star, the four liners were respectively renamed Republic, Cretic, Romanic and Canopic. These four ships were greatly similar in appearance to the Cymric and Arabic, all with a single funnel with two or four masts, with engines geared to twin screws capable of service speeds between 14 and 16 knots (26 and 30 km/h; 16 and 18 mph). They all also fell within the same range in terms of dimensions, with lengths between 550 and 582 ft (168 and 177 m), beams between 59 and 67 ft (18 and 20 m), and similar gross tonnage. There was, however, considerable variances in passenger capacities. Republic, which in time would come to obtain the nickname 'The Millionaires' Ship', had the largest capacity with accommodations for 2,400 passengers (200 First Class, 200 Second Class, 2,000 Third Class). The three remaining ships had considerably smaller capacities, with the Cretic designed with accommodations for 1,510 passengers (260 First Class, 250 Second Class, 1,000 Third Class), Romanic with accommodations for 1,200 passengers (200 First Class, 200 Second Class, 800 Third Class) and Canopic with accommodations for 1,277 passengers (275 First Class, 232 Second Class, 770 Third Class).

Following the conclusion of their service under Dominion Line in late 1903, the four liners were briefly withdrawn from service. Their names were changed, their funnels were repainted into White Star colors, and they were made ready for their new services. Romanic was the first to enter service under White Star, sailing for Boston on 19 November, followed by Cretic on 26 November. In order to balance the schedule between the Liverpool and Mediterranean services to Boston, Cymric was transferred to the Liverpool-Boston route, departing Liverpool for her first trip to Boston on 10 December, while Republic entered service to Boston on 17 December. Canopic completed the service upon her departure from Liverpool on 14 January 1904. Upon their arrivals in Boston, Romanic and Canopic were both immediately transferred to the Mediterranean services formerly run by the Dominion Line. This route followed a line which first made port at Sao Miguel in the Azores before passing through the straits of Gibraltar and making port in Naples and Genoa. Republic was also put into service on the Mediterranean route following her first crossing to Boston, but only for the first half of the 1904 season, and was switched back to the Liverpool-Boston service until winter, a pattern she would follow for the remainder of her career. Cretic remained on the Liverpool-Boston service running opposite Cymric for a full year until November 1904, when alongside Republic she began sailing on the secondary service to the Mediterranean from New York.

Olympic-class ships

White Star moved their express service from Liverpool to Southampton in 1907, providing them with the advantage of a continental stopover in Cherbourg that allowed the vessel to take on more passengers. This service was initially provided by Teutonic, Majestic, Oceanic and Adriatic, the latter being slower but able to carry many more passengers. A ferry, the Gallic, was also purchased to help board passengers and luggage during the French stopover. This solution was only temporary, however, and the company was already planning the arrival of much larger and faster vessels in order to establish a regular and more efficient service.

While Harland & Wolff started construction of the new Olympic class, White Star continued to diversify its activities. Its establishment in Southampton led to a price war between companies, which drastically reduced its third-class fares. It was at this point that the North Atlantic Conference was created to regulate fares and crossings according to demand. In 1909, White Star took over part of the activities of the Dominion Line, another IMM company serving Canada. Two of this company's ships, then under construction, were transferred to White Star and became Laurentic and Megantic, bringing the company into the Canadian route. These two ships also served as a testing ground for the propulsion method of the Olympic-class liners.

When she entered service in June 1911, Olympic was an immediate and highly satisfactory success, with White Star ordering a third ship, Britannic. The initial success was quickly disrupted. On 20 September 1911, Olympic was damaged following a collision with the cruiser HMS Hawke, which led to her return to the shipyard for lengthy repairs and the postponement of the entry into service of Titanic.

Titanic eventually entered service in April 1912, but her career would be short-lived. She was lost after striking an iceberg on her maiden voyage, leading to the deaths of around 1,500 people. The impact on public opinion was considerable.

The sinking of Titanic caused a small loss of confidence in large liners, which had to be equipped with additional lifeboats. Olympic suffered a mutiny shortly after the sinking, when some of her stokers expressed concern about the seaworthiness of her hastily installed collapsible lifeboats and refused to work. The ship was withdrawn from service in October 1912 and was extensively refitted to improve her safety in light of Titanic′s sinking. She returned to service in March 1913. Construction of Britannic was postponed in order to allow the lessons learned from the sinking of her sister to be implemented into her design.

War and reparations (1914–1926)

When World War I broke out, the White Star fleet became involved in the war. At the time, it controlled 35 ships, and all served in the war effort, either by being directly commissioned by the Royal Navy, or within the framework of the Liner Requisition Act. In these conditions, the losses were numerous. The route from Southampton was stopped in order to avoid losses, and only Baltic and Adriatic remained on the route from Liverpool to New York, quickly joined by ships loaned from the Red Star Line: Lapland, Zeeland, and Vaderland.

Oceanic, Teutonic, Celtic and Cedric were quickly converted into auxiliary cruisers, and joined the 10th Squadron of the Royal Navy. Majestic escaped the fighting, its scrapping having begun a few weeks before the start of the conflict. The company's first wartime loss was Oceanic, which ran aground and was lost on 8 September 1914.

The first White Star ship lost to enemy action was Arabic, which was torpedoed off the Irish coast in August 1915 with the loss of 44 lives. November 1916 would see the loss of Britannic, the third and final Olympic-class vessel, which sank near the Greek island of Kea after striking a naval mine while in service as a hospital ship. Britannic was the largest loss for the company, and also the largest ship sunk during the conflict. 1916 also saw the loss of Cymric, which was torpedoed off the Irish coast in May, and also of the cargo ship Georgic, which was scuttled in December with its cargo of 1,200 horses still on board after being intercepted in the Atlantic by the German merchant raider SMS Möwe.

1917 saw the loss of Laurentic in January, which struck a mine off the Irish coast and sank with the loss of 354 lives and 3,211 gold ingots. The following month the liner Afric was sunk by a torpedo in the English Channel, as was Delphic in August. Another large loss came in 1918, when Justicia, a 32,120 GRT liner requisitioned from Holland America Line and operated by White Star, was torpedoed and sunk.

Many White Star ships were requisitioned for various types of war service, most commonly for use as troop ships. The most notable of these was Olympic, which transported over 200,000 troops during the conflict. Some ships, still under construction when the war broke out, were sent into military service unfinished and were not completed until after the war. This was the case with Belgic and Vedic. The company lost ten ships over the course of the conflict, but its fleet carried nearly 550,000 soldiers and four million tons of cargo, and nearly 325 officers, engineers, marshals and medics were decorated during the war. With the end of hostilities, their surviving ships were decommissioned to resume their commercial service.

War reparations

After the war, the White Star Line found itself in a difficult situation. Of its three Olympic-class giants, only the lead ship remained to resume commercial service. The losses on other routes were also far from negligible. After the end of hostilities in November 1918, the Big Four resumed service from Liverpool with the help of Lapland, Belgic and the briefly chartered Mobile. In July 1919, Cretic and Canopic resumed their Mediterranean service. In September 1919, Lapland and Adriatic reopened the Southampton route. In 1920, Olympic returned to service and displaced Lapland after undergoing an overhaul that included a conversion to oil burning, which was more economical than coal.

After the ships that had survived the conflict returned to service, the company still had to compensate for its losses, which it decided to do by buying as many second-hand ships as possible, and sometimes by lending them to other shipping companies within the IMM. The company bought two cargo ships built as part of the war effort, War Argus and War Priam, which became Gallic and Bardic. They acquired Haverford from the American Line in 1921, as well as Poland from the Red Star Line in 1922.

In 1922, the White Star Line obtained three former German liners which had been ceded to Britain as war reparations under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, ostensibly as replacements for the war losses of Britannic, Oceanic, Arabic, Cymric and Laurentic. These were the former SS Bismarck, which was renamed Majestic, the former SS Berlin, renamed Arabic, and the former SS Columbus, renamed Homeric. At 56,551 gross register tons, Majestic was then the world's largest liner and became the company's unofficial flagship. The two former German liners operated successfully alongside Olympic on the Southampton–New York route until the Great Depression reduced demand after 1930.

In the immediate post-war period there was a boom in transatlantic migration, from which White Star was able to benefit for a time. However, this trade was badly affected by the Immigration Act of 1924, which introduced quotas for immigrants to the United States. This lowered the profits of the shipping lines, for whom migration had been a source of profit for nearly a century. However, the growth in tourism was to some degree able to offset the decline of migration, and White Star made efforts to appeal to this new kind of travelers by gradually overhauling liners still in service and re-configuring Third Class accommodations as Tourist Class.

Lord Kylsant and the Great Depression (1927–1934)

Shortly after, Lord Kylsant intervened in the situation with the IMM. As the head of Harland & Wolff since the death of Lord Pirrie in 1924, he was particularly interested in the White Star Line, to which Harland & Wolff had a close business relationship. In November 1926, Kylsant announced that he had bought back all the shares in the White Star Line from IMM for £7,907,661. The sale took effect on 1 January 1927, making Kylsant the owner of the largest fleet in the world thanks to his Royal Mail Steam Packet Company (RMSPC). The IMM continued to manage the American White Star agencies.

Despite everything, Kylsant's empire was not to succeed: its vast and aging fleet had to be replaced at a time when the company was experiencing great financial difficulties. This mainly involved repaying Treasury loans that were approaching maturity. Kylsant nevertheless took advantage of his new acquisition to reorganize this fleet: he decided to give White Star the monopoly of the Southampton route within his group, and therefore reassigned two of the ships that the Royal Mail operated on this route, Ohio and Orca, which became Albertic and Calgaric respectively, to the Canadian route alongside Laurentic. As the new chairman of the company, Kylsant was also trying to strengthen the company in its services to Australia. To do this, he bought back the shares of Sir John Ellerman, a minority shareholder of Shaw, Savill & Albion Line, for £994,000 in 1928. This action followed the buyout, for nearly two million pounds, of the Commonwealth Line. These purchases, made by the company White Star Line Ltd created by Kylsant, pushed the company into bankruptcy, even as the group was demanding delays in repaying the Treasury. The decision also turned out to be erroneous; the route to Australia was already suffering from a surplus of tonnage, and the hopes of Kylsant, who said he believed "in the future of Australia," turned out to be in vain. It was also in this context that Kylsant was launching a new construction program at the Harland & Wolff shipyard.

In 1928, a new Oceanic was ordered and her keel was laid down that year at Harland and Wolff. The thousand foot long liner was to have been a motor ship propelled by the new diesel-electric propulsion system. However, while the construction of the keel was in progress, work was stopped during 1929, initially to study the new propulsion device. The construction never resumed. Its keel was dismantled and the steel used to construct other ships. The Great Depression of 1929 put an end to the project. Since Lord Kylsant took control of the company, he had been siphoning the revenues of the company for the benefit of the rest of the RMSPC pending an improvement in the financial situation. Also, the dividends declared by the company were constantly decreasing, prompting Harold Sanderson to leave the management. In addition, repeated requests from the Treasury to obtain reimbursement weakened Kylsant, who was eventually arrested in connection with the Royal Mail Case in 1931.

Cunard merger

In 1933, White Star and Cunard were both in serious financial difficulties due to the Great Depression, plummeting passenger numbers, and the advanced age of their fleets. Work was halted on Cunard's new giant, Hull 534, later Queen Mary, in 1931 to save money. In 1933, the British government agreed to provide assistance to the two competitors on the condition that they merge their North Atlantic operations. The agreement was completed on 30 December 1933. The merger took place on 10 May 1934, creating Cunard-White Star Limited. White Star contributed ten ships to the new company while Cunard contributed fifteen. Due to this arrangement, and since Hull 534 was Cunard's ship, 62% of the company was owned by Cunard's shareholders and 38% of the company was owned for the benefit of White Star's creditors. White Star's Australia and New Zealand services were not involved in the merger, but were separately disposed of to the Shaw, Savill & Albion Line later in 1934. A year later, Olympic was withdrawn from service and scrapped in 1937.

In 1947, Cunard acquired the remaining 38% of Cunard White Star. On 31 December 1949, they acquired Cunard-White Star's assets and operations, and reverted to using the name "Cunard" on 1 January 1950. From the time of the 1934 merger, the house flags of both lines had been flown on all their ships, with each ship flying the flag of its original owner above the other, but from 1950, even Georgic and Britannic, the last surviving White Star liners, flew the Cunard house flag above the White Star burgee until they were each withdrawn from service in 1956 and 1961 respectively. Just as the retiring of Cunard's Aquitania in 1950 marked the end of the pre-World War I 'floating palaces', the retirement of Britannic a decade later marked the end of White Star Line. All Cunard vessels flew both the Cunard and White Star Line house flags on their masts until late 1968. This was most likely because Nomadic remained in service with Cunard until 4 November 1968, and was sent to the breakers' yard, only to be bought for use as a floating restaurant. After this, the White Star flag was no longer flown, the White Star name was removed from Cunard operations and all remnants of both White Star Line and Cunard-White Star Line were retired.

The Australia Run

White Star had begun as a line serving traffic to and from Australia, especially during the gold rushes of the 1850s, but following the line's collapse and its purchase by Thomas Ismay in 1868, the company was rebuilt as a trans-Atlantic line. However, in the late 1890s White Star decided to reinstate a service to Australia, partly because of the discovery of further gold deposits in Western Australia leading to another series of gold rushes and an increase in emigrants to Australia, as well as an increasing trade in minerals, agricultural produce, wool and meat in the other direction. The latter had become a major source of revenue for shipping lines already on the route after the advent of effective mechanical refrigeration systems in the late 1880s, allowing large quantities of cattle carcasses to be preserved on the long voyage back to the British Isles.

Thomas Ismay decided to re-enter the Australian run in 1897 with a monthly service between Liverpool, Cape Town and Sydney. A stop at Tenerife was included in the schedule both outbound and inbound. Outbound ships would call at Adelaide and Melbourne and the return trip would call at Plymouth before ending at Liverpool. With the journey taking six weeks, five ships would be needed to maintain the service in both directions. The specification for the new ships was drawn up and the order placed with Harland & Wolff in the summer of 1897, coinciding with the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, thus they became known as the Jubilee class. In keeping with White Star's new philosophy on the Atlantic of size over speed, the Jubilee class were to be the largest ships ever put on the Australia run, at 550 ft (170 m) in length and nearly 12,000 gross register tons. They were single-funnel, twin-screw ships designed as mixed cargo/passenger vessels, essentially being enlarged versions of White Star's earlier Naronic class. With a service speed of 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph), the Jubilee class were significantly slower than the smaller mailships run by the Orient Line and P&O and their size meant they could not transit the Suez Canal, so they would have to take the long route via South Africa and would not attract first-class passengers. Instead they were intended for the emigrant/seasonal worker traffic, carrying 320 passengers solely in what was described as third-class accommodation. However, following White Star's long tradition of improving standards for third-class passengers, these facilities were considerably ahead of the equivalent on other lines, being broadly in line with second-class facilities on other ships. Although all of the same class, prices for berths on the Jubilee class varied, allowing passengers the choice of two- or four-berth cabins for a premium or open dormitories. Passengers had use of facilities such as a large dining room, a library and a smoking room, as well as free run of nearly all the ship's deck space during the voyage. The ships could carry 15,000 tons of cargo in seven holds, including capacity for 100,000 meat carcasses.

The New Zealand Service

In 1883 an agreement was made between White Star and the Shaw, Savill & Albion Line (newly formed by merger the previous year) to operate a joint service between London and Wellington. Thomas Ismay had already been considering setting up a New Zealand route for White Star, but with Shaw, Savill & Albion (SS&A) already formed due to the difficulties of competing against the New Zealand Shipping Company (NZSC), sharing the venture with a firm that was already established on the route but looking to expand was an attractive proposition. Two ships were already in-build by the time the agreement was signed – the Ionic (1883) and the Doric. In fact both these ships were chartered to the would-be rival NZSC immediately after their launch, as well as the older Coptic to make up for the very shortfall in ships on the run that White Star was hoping to exploit.

The White Star/Shaw Savill New Zealand service did not begin in earnest until the next year. The three ships were timetabled in addition to the existing Shaw Savill service and were managed and administered by Shaw Savill's agents, but White Star provided the crews and the ships retained their White Star names, livery and house flag. The route was an eastward circumnavigation, calling at Tenerife, Cape Town and Dar es Salaam on the way to Wellington, then rounding Cape Horn and calling at Montevideo and Rio de Janeiro on the return.

Traffic on the New Zealand route did not develop as quickly as anticipated, and in 1893 a new dedicated combined cargo/passenger liner, Gothic, with nearly twice the gross tonnage of one of the older ships, was introduced. Coptic and Doric were chartered to White Star's long-time partner in the Pacific, the Occidental and Oriental Steamship Company.

By the next decade, traffic on the New Zealand service had picked up and was becoming both profitable and over-subscribed. When White Star became part of the International Mercantile Marine Company in 1902, an agreement was made with Shaw, Savill & Albion that White Star would construct and provide three ships for the joint New Zealand service which, as before, would be managed and administered by SS&A. A trio of new 12,300 GRT liners, the Athenic class were ordered from Harland & Wolff. Although slightly smaller in length and tonnage, they closely resembled the two modified Jubilee-class liners built for the Australia Run, with bridges mounted far forward to allow for a generous passenger-carrying space. Unlike the Jubilees, the Athenic class carried passengers in all three classes. Athenic and Corinthic entered service in 1902 and Ionic (1902) (re-using the name of one of the ships that began the service 20 years before) in 1903.

Legacy

The White Star Line's main offices, Albion House, still exist in Liverpool, standing in James Street within sight of the more grandiose headquarters of their rivals, the Cunard Building. The building has a plaque commemorating the fact that it was once the head office of the White Star Line. It was the first open plan office building in Liverpool. J. Bruce Ismay had his office in the building.

The White Star Line's London office building, Oceanic House, still exists today, and has been converted into apartments. They are on Cockspur Street, off Trafalgar Square, and the company name can still be seen on the building over the entrances. The Southampton offices in Canute Road still exist, now known as Canute Chambers.

The French passenger tender Nomadic, the last surviving vessel of the White Star Line, was purchased by the Northern Ireland Department for Social Development in January 2006. She has since been returned to Belfast, where she has been fully restored to her original and elegant 1912 appearance under the auspices of the Nomadic Preservation Society with the assistance of her original builders, Harland and Wolff. She is currently serving as an outside exhibit of the Titanic Belfast museum, a museum dedicated to the history of Atlantic steam, the White Star Line, and its most famous ship, Titanic. The historic Nomadic was opened ceremoniously to the public on 31 May 2013.

In 1995, Cunard Line introduced White Star Service to Queen Elizabeth 2 as a reference to the high standards of customer service expected of the company. The term is still used today onboard Queen Mary 2, Queen Victoria, Queen Elizabeth, and Queen Anne. The company has also created the White Star Academy, an in-house programme for preparing new crew members for the service standards expected on Cunard ships.

The White Star flag is raised on all Cunard ships and Nomadic every 15 April in memory of the Titanic disaster.